


aperture

by albion



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: (has a happy ending.), Alternate Universe, Angst, Bad Dreams, Betrayal, Blackwatch, Casual Discussions of Murder, Developing Relationship, Domestic, Emotional Baggage, Gen, Honeypot Missions, Illnesses, M/M, Parallel Universe and Timeline Shenanigans, References to Depression, Reunion, Sacrifice, Slight Body Horror because this is Reaper, Smoking, Split Personalities, Trust Issues, Undercover, Vague references to torture, implications of Brainwashing, in the deep lurk Bad Things, unsubtle references to ancient greek and shakespearean tragedy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-24
Updated: 2016-12-07
Packaged: 2018-09-01 21:49:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 17,014
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8639527
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/albion/pseuds/albion
Summary: Seven snapshots of a relationship from the beginning until the end.





	1. the last wall

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Day One - Domestic.

The night is quiet and dark and still. Outside on the street, insects buzz quietly under the harsh glare of street lamps, each three yards apart. Immaculately cut lawns spread out on each side of the road. There are even a few white picket fences.

An ordinary night in an ordinary suburban community that is of course hiding secrets behind each brightly painted door.

The man walks up the paved walkway to his front door, pulls out his set of keys from his back pocket, newly cut, and quietly lets himself in, scuffing his boots against the step as he goes. Kicks the door shut with one dismissive foot, and locks the door behind him.

He turns to survey his surroundings. A single glowing lamp in the living room is the only source of light in the dim hallway.

Air hisses out between his teeth. To combat the sickly humid heat of summer, the air conditioning has been turned on at full blast and the sudden chill immediately hits right to the bone.

He decides to keep his jacket on for a few more minutes, at least. Slips off his boots, leaving them haphazardly next to the rack. Grins a little to himself, humming a tune.

Plodding quietly down the hallway to the door of the living room, he pokes his head inside. Ah, as expected—the house’s other occupant has carefully packed away all traces of himself for the night, leaving nothing out for prying eyes.

When Jesse left the house to grab some more milk, Commander Reyes had been sitting on the couch, perched right on the edge of it like a hawk, listening intently to the wiretaps he’d installed all over the neighbourhood. Waiting for the right code names, a slip of the tongue. A single sentence out of place, and he’d have moved instantly. Their ammunition was locked in a safe box kept inside the pantry. With a datapad propped on one broad thigh, he typed his notes in a coded shorthand Jesse didn’t even dream of being able to read.

But apparently tonight there had been nothing.

Jesse shrugs, goes over to the fridge and deposits the milk. He shuts the door, then pauses, and opens it again, scanning the shelves for anything good. He’s feeling a bit peckish, truth be told, and a few days ago he left a tupperware of Chinese takeout to eat later—

He stops. Frowns, then squats in front of the open fridge door. Where are his leftovers?

Reaching out, he moves a half empty carton of eggs, a wrapped package of real butter—Commander Reyes was picky—and some strawberries.

His eyes narrow. Lifting himself to his feet, Jesse lets the door quietly shut again with a dramatic sigh. Evening thoroughly ruined.

He stomps quietly up the stairs, unzipping his jacket as he goes. Makes a left at the top, and approaches one of the bedroom doors. He stops, knocks quietly.

There is no answer. Jesse frowns. Then, taking his chances, he pushes it open with one hand as his mouth opens.

“You ate my leftovers—”

He stops. Sucks in a deep draw of breath. He didn’t expect this.

Commander Reyes is _asleep._ Actually, legitimately asleep, lying under the dark red bedspread, chest rising and falling with deep, even breaths. He sleeps on his side, Jesse notices, one arm underneath the pillow, the other held out in front of him. 

The powerful muscle of his bicep is clearly visible underneath the shirt he’s wearing. Even in sleep, he’s tense.

Jesse closes his mouth again. Continues pushing open the door quietly, before folding his jacket over one arm.

In all the time they’ve been working together, through numerous undercover ops, Jesse has never seen his commander sleep in a bed. He’s seen him catch a few precious hours of shuteye on a moving train, arms crossed and face buried between them. He’s seen him crawl into a narrow ventilation shaft and curl up as much as his body will allow, rifle tucked under one arm. He’s even certain once he saw Reyes fall asleep whilst _standing up_. Rare moments when the immovable force that is the Commander decides to just—stop. For a short while.

But this. This is… something Jesse can’t quite name. Something he doesn’t think he wants to name.

He waits for Reyes to wake up, start yelling, and toss him out of the window or something equally as dramatic. But as the minutes slowly tick by, Reyes doesn’t do anything. Doesn’t even move, which Jesse knows means something is definitely off because Jesse knows full well Reyes can wake at the drop of a pin, if he so chooses.

Is he… exhausted?

...does Jesse dare?

A few more minutes give him his answer. Yes, he absolutely does.

He creeps as softly as he can closer to the bed, acutely aware of the slither of moonlight shining through the crack in the curtains. Blackout, of course. Reyes was very clear in his instructions.

Jesse’s own bedroom curtains are bright red. He’s the rebellious teenager. And Reyes? The overworked white collar divorcée, too busy destroying his business rivals to try and make time for his son, who is about a hair’s breadth away from setting the kitchen on fire in a fit of rage, a desperate attempt for _dad, please look at me. Please notice me._

Or at least, that’s what the gossip is around the neighbourhood. That's what they wanted the gossip to be. And both agents have been very meticulous in their construction. Jesse chose to leave the house at 2 a.m. to buy milk for a very specific reason, after all. There’s also a new pack of cigarettes in his left jacket pocket, but nobody needs to know that particular detail.

He stops at the edge of the bed and allows himself an indulgence. Just… stares at Reyes for a few moments. Taking in the line of his brow and jaw, the scars on his face that by day Reyes covers with carefully applied makeup for the role he’s currently playing. In the moonlight, his black hair looks even darker, and as Jesse moves closer his body casts Reyes’ sleeping face into shadow.

Gabriel Reyes, done in charcoal and ink.

Jesse’s foot squeaks against a loose floorboard and he stops moving immediately, nearly biting through his lower lip. Reyes looks vulnerable like this, but the instant he wakes up, if he wakes up, Jesse knows he’s gonna be in for it. Hell, Jesse’s actually not too certain Reyes wouldn’t be able to just discipline him in his sleep.

He quickly backs away from the bed and towards the doorway, cursing himself. Then, as he reaches the doorway again, he takes a moment to reconsider. He’s already in his pyjamas; he wore them to the corner store (all for the sake of his cover, of course, the sloppy teenager) and this… this is his only chance. Of that, Jesse is absolutely certain.

Besides, in a deep dark recess of his mind, he’s fairly sure that maybe Joel the teenager is so desperate for his father’s attention he might dare to creep into bed with him, five years old again and crying from a nightmare, searching for a parent’s comfort to chase away the dark howling ghosts and terrors that lurked under the bed and around every corner. Jesse did the mandatory psychology courses in Blackwatch. He created this character himself. Nothing he does can really be _out of character_.

Jesse quietly lifts the corner of the bed-sheet and creeps in beside his commander, taking special care not to brush against the other man with his limbs. There’s a carefully held space between them, a solid thirty centimetres between commanding officer and agent, just the appropriate amount for the façade to remain son and father sharing a bed and not Something Else. Through some heaven-sent miracle, Reyes barely stirs.

Jesse drapes the sheets back over his body and lies down flat and still, face up, arms awkwardly crossed on top of his chest, like they do in the movies. Nobody actually falls asleep in this position. Whirring loudly in the silence, the air conditioning continues to run too cold.

It isn’t real. Nothing about their lives is real—countless aliases and fake passports, hopping borders and traveling in cargo holds. Altering their faces with prosthetics. Quick changes in the backs of stolen trucks, disposing parts of bodies in twelve different garbage incinerators across the span of a city and a half. In Blackwatch, nothing is real.

But here, in this space just for a moment, Jesse can pretend.

And in the morning, even though Jesse wakes up last, Reyes says nothing about the events of the night. He continues as he always has, focused on the mission, focused on the plan.

(Years later, Jesse will find out that Gabriel was awake the entire time.)

 

* * *

 

"you’re the last wall that will stand tall till the end of the world" - _hypocrates_ , marina and the diamonds


	2. curves of glass

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Day Two - Smoke.

Reyes smokes after sex. Not his best cigars but the second best ones, the ones that have the lingering aftertaste of cardamom. His _best_ ones, imported and usually kept locked up tight in his office safe are reserved for the long afterglow of near-death situations, when his drug mutated cells are running on full speed ahead for at least an hour afterward and there’s a steady thrum under his skin, the drumming everlasting beat of the SEP.

He knows the drugs and the training and the… experiments changed him and Jack in different ways. Their biology is different, now forever unique, but sometimes Gabriel Reyes wonders if Jack Morrison also has some very peculiar tastes now in the way that he does. The program changed him. The program changed _them_.

When he was younger, more wild and more human and less… enhanced, he hated smoking. Never found a use for it. If he needed to relax, he would vent out frustration through sports, his hobbies, or occasionally drinking with his friends. His father and grandfather both smoked—the thick scent of it lingered in the air whenever they drew near, the acrid tang of it on their breath when they talked. Gabriel hated it. Vowed never to do it.

But when it’s 4 a.m. and you feel as though you’re going to violently expel all the organs in your body through every orifice, and a brusque, older soldier shoves a lit cigarette in your mouth and the rest of the pack in your hands, you’ll take to trying anything you can get to numb the pain.

And it had worked, honestly. And when the Crisis had rolled around, and then Overwatch, and Blackwatch—well. Gabriel Reyes thinks perhaps his lungs are now one of his lesser concerns in the wake of everything else.

Gabriel stands on the edge of the boat in a pair of dirty jeans and lights up one of his second-best cigars. Staring out onto the dark sapphire blue of the ocean, forearms resting on the metal railing, he notes the slightly choppy waves churning down below from the movement of the cruiser, like milky foam on the top of a cappuccino.

He could do with a coffee right about now, actually. He feels it in his legs, slightly achey with recent exertion, his hands that shake ever so gently whenever his mutated body craves another source of stimulation; something, _anything_ to get the blood pumping again. The super-soldier must always be ready for action.

The air outside is cool with the night breeze blowing in over the sea, bringing the smell of fresh salt. He shivers involuntarily at the cold lick of it over the bare skin of his chest, still damp with sweat. He has time for half of a cigar and a cup of coffee, he decides. Then it’s time to move. He cannot dawdle too long. The rendezvous will be soon.

For a few more minutes he stands there gazing out upon the moonlight ocean, smoke curling up into the sky from between his lips, tasting of tobacco and spices. Contemplates the enormity of it, the incomprehensible depth of it below him. If he were to fall in, and keep falling, disregarding natural buoyancy and weighted down with a stone tied around his ankle, who knows where he’d end up. Crushed under the pressure, drowning and alone in the deep dark abyss, surrounded by creatures as of yet still unknown to man.

The idea of the deep ocean has always fascinated him as much as it has scared him. Lovecraftian Cthulhu, the Kraken; he wonders if they battle with Jörmungandr for living space or if the ocean is indeed so vast that it can accommodate them all, co-existing between Scylla and Charybdis. There are mountains down there, he knows, three times taller than the tallest on earth and yet their peaks still cannot pierce the surface.

He idly considers letting the remaining half of his cigar drop from his lips into the inky depths. One man’s measly tribute to the great deep, a desperate attempt at pacification. Then he laughs. Pulls the cigar out from between his lips and holds it gently in his hand. Without turning his head, his lips move. The coffee idea goes down the drain.

“How long were you just gonna stand there and watch?”

From out of the darkness a younger man appears, dressed in a skintight bodysuit of black and grey and blue, slashed in random lines and patterns to break up the solid colour.

Reyes knows Jesse McCree smokes. Not cigars, for he hasn’t quite reached that level, but the cheapest brand of cigarettes he can find, a habit from Deadlock he hasn’t yet stamped out. He’s also a lot more open with the types of things he’ll try; Reyes once walked in on him in a bathroom stall in Colombia, vaping with a group of omnics who also happened to be gun-runners on the side. Jesse smokes like he’s smoked for decades, even though he’s barely two decades old, shoving them between his lips with the casual air of somebody who knows they’re killing their lungs and doesn’t quite care to change. He’s bad at remembering to bring his lighter on missions, however, so Reyes nearly always has to indulge him. Allows Jesse’s head to bend in close like a suppliant at the altar as he connects the tip of his cigarette to the flame at the top of Reyes’ own silver filigree lighter.

Reyes swallows. Stares at his still smouldering cigar for a moment, then flicks it out into the sea. He’ll let them have it this time. Better to be safe than sorry.

Jesse makes a low noise in his throat. “Wastin’ good shit you are, boss.”

Gabriel turns around and catches the sleek fabric Jesse tosses to him, a twin of the one he’s currently wearing. The thermal suits are designed for maximum nighttime stealth, threaded through with strong and flexible fibres. Still, Reyes doesn't want to remain exposed to the elements for any longer than is absolutely necessary.

“Not a waste if it’s an investment, McCree.”

“An investment?” A cocked eyebrow, a slight incline of the head. Gabriel glances around at his surroundings for a moment before dropping his jeans and the underwear beneath. He's glad to be free of them at last. He slips into the bodysuit, cursing under his breath as the drying sweat comes into contact with the fabric. Luckily, it probably won’t matter too much, not with the bath he’s about to take. Jesse moves wordlessly around to help Gabriel with the fastening at the back. Gabriel lets him.

They stand together on the deck for a few moments before Jesse shakes his head.

“Investment,” he mutters. “Anyway, did everythin’ go according to plan?”

Gabriel looks back at the half open door behind him that leads to the cabin. Inside it contains one bed, one fancy holoset, one ensuite bathroom, a lot of discarded clothing on the floor, and currently also one corpse.

“I’d say so,” Gabriel replies.

Jesse smirks slowly, evaluating the question Reyes knows is merely seconds away from leaving his mouth. “So... how was the guy in bed?”

“Good,” Reyes says dismissively. Then: “had better.”

Jesse grins, moving one hand to quickly tie his hair back with an elastic on his wrist. It’s getting long, Gabriel notes. Worked for this op but when they got back he’d have to get Jesse to cut it. Of course, the kid’s never been very good at that so maybe Gabriel would end up doing it himself.

The two men move to the railing. Jesse peeks over the edge, staring down at the dark waves. “And exactly at what coordinates do we do this?”

“Give it a few,” Reyes replies quietly. “I’ll tell you when.”

“Yeah,” Jesse mutters, “it had better be real soon, because I sure as hell don’t want to be trapped on an ocean liner when staff discover there’s a stiff in one of the cabins.”

“We have at least a half hour more until anybody will come looking for him,” Gabriel says smoothly. “And we’ll be gone long before then.” He reaches down into the back pocket of his discarded jeans and pulls out the lighter he’s been using for this mission so far. Not his own, of course, which means he wouldn’t miss this one later. He flicks it once, twice to get the flame going. Counts to five slowly in his head.

The beep of the tracker attached to his hip informs him that they’ve reached the drop-off point. He nods at Jesse. “You’re up.”

Jesse hesitates. Jesse usually never hesitates.

Gabriel sighs loudly, crossing his arms. “Do you trust me?”

McCree cuts right to the quick. “You know, I think I’m having second thoughts about this. ’Cause what if Henrik doesn’t show up? It’s gonna be fucking _freezing,_ all we’re gonna do is recreate the ending of _Titanic_ , and I sure as hell don’t wanna be Jack.”

“Well I ain’t being fucking Rose either,” Gabriel mutters, swiftly moving one arm to push Jesse over the side. He watches in unrestrained amusement as Jesse falls over the edge with a soft cry, flounders mid-air for a few heart-stopping moments, before recalling his training and stretching out his feet for a well executed pencil-dive, piercing the water with barely a sound.

That was the thing about Jesse. Sometimes you had to throw him into the deep end to see what he could do. Quite literally.

Reyes waits, watching the water below. Jesse remains under for a while before finally breaking the surface again. Gabriel sees his tiny head far down below. He moves one arm in an action that Gabriel knows without a shadow of a doubt is Jesse flipping him off, but he doesn’t dare to yell up at him, for fear of being heard.

Gabriel tosses the lit lighter onto the pile of clothing and flips himself elegantly over the railing. Despite his mental calculations he hits the freezing water quicker than he expected, feels the sharp kick in the gut as all the air instantly expels from his lungs. He blinks his eyes open to absolute darkness and panics for a few terrifying moments, lungs empty and burning, skin prickling with cold and limbs stiff, remembering the monsters of the deep that swum across his nightmares as a child, reading books under the covers by the light of his cellphone.

He kicks his feet out, arms outstretched above him as if trying to claw his way up. His suit might regulate his body temperature and keep him warm for a half hour at most, but it would offer him absolutely no protection against anything _else_ that lurked below. 

For a few dizzying moments, Gabriel is suspended in utter burning darkness. Then one strong arm grabs him around the waist and hauls him up until his head breaks the surface, and Gabriel breathes, hacking and coughing and utterly _alive_. He groans internally. Jesus fuck, that’s going to be embarrassing later. He spits out some water, and Jesse merely looks at him.

“You can thank me later for my investment,” he manages to say. “And then you’re buying me a new pack of my best cigars, because when we get the _fuck_ back onto dry land, I’m going to make damn well sure I run out of them tonight.”

Jesse grabs his commander’s wrist underwater, slowly pulling their bodies closer together. “Any for me?” he asks. He’s visibly shivering, teeth chattering audibly, but he’s smiling.

Gabriel manages a pained grin. “If you don’t, I’ll shove them down your own damn throat, McCree.”

McCree laughs. Gabriel shakes his head, expelling the monsters from his mind, and the two of them begin swimming in the direction of where Agent Henrik waits with the boat to pick them up and bring them safely to the rendezvous point. 

Jesse takes to cigars after that night, throwing the rest of his cigarettes in the trash and never looking back. Gabriel knows the effect he has on his agents.

(Years later, Reaper will remember McCree attempting to grab his wrist, desperately pleading for a man long dead. Instead, he encounters nothing but dissipating fingers of oily, dirty smoke.)

 

* * *

 

"you’re made of curves of glass, blown out with air from the lungs of God" - _white flag_ , the romanovs


	3. overwhelm my lungs

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Day Three - Trust.

In all the times he’s had this particular conversation in his dreams, it goes a lot better than this.

In his dreams, the post-op adrenaline high forces all rational thought from their minds and they crash together furiously, stormy waves against the solid, firm rock. In his dreams there are knives, sometimes guns, and sometimes ropes too, things that make Jesse squirm around on his bunk and press his face into his pillow, teeth threatening to tear the fabric as he desperately tries to stifle his own noise. In his dreams, the muzzle of the gun presses close against the small of his spine, cool and threatening. Jesse stiffens instinctively, back straightening and muscles tightening. His fingers twitch for his holster.

“I wouldn’t do that if I were you.” A voice, low and smoky and dangerously calm. The man who’s holding it presses his body firmly against McCree’s own. He feels the rough fabric of the man’s fatigues, the heady warmth underneath them where blood runs hot through arteries and veins. They fit together like two puzzle pieces, thigh against thigh, as his commanding officer slowly pushes him down until Jesse is bent over the bed.

But dreams aren’t reality. And in reality, two men sit opposite each other over the remains of their card game, whiskey glasses empty and the smouldering remains of two cigars in the green ashtray between them. They sit awkwardly, trying not to make eye contact.

Jesse’s had too much to drink and they both know it. His plays had gotten wilder as the evening wore on, slapping down his cards and laughing at nothing as the alcohol hit his bloodstream. Reyes had indulged him. The objective for tonight hadn’t been a serious game but merely stress relief after their recent string of failed operations, something to lighten the dour mood between them and chase away the dark clouds that seem to hang over Blackwatch HQ more often these days.

It had been working. That is, it had been working until McCree had uttered a single sentence that threatened to destroy everything he had ever built for himself, inebriated and mouth moving before he could stop it. He had survived Deadlock, escaped prison, and had systematically clawed his way up the Blackwatch ladder, even though occasionally he had nearly slipped and fell due to the blood on his hands. He had killed and lied and manipulated, because he knew in the end it was for a greater good, and he was being _good_. Reyes had been there through it all, guiding his feet onto the right path, showing him the necessary evils of the world.

And the fire that had long burned between them, once hot and fierce and bright, had gently simmered down over time to a low smoky char. Over the years, Jesse had become content with the light, playful flirting. It didn’t mean anything, because Reyes just didn’t _do_ that. That was okay. McCree could deal with that.

Until apparently he couldn’t.

Gabriel Reyes sits opposite his second-in-command and tries not to make eye contact. Jesse McCree stares down at the remains of their game of Briscola, and bites his lip.

“Uh, boss… yeah I didn’t—I didn’t mean that. What I asked. Forget it.”

A pause. “Yes you did.” Quiet, soft.

There’s no lying to that voice. “...okay yeah, I did.”

This is it then. Time to face the music.

Gabriel opens his mouth, and for once he sounds... _unsure_ of himself. Gabriel Reyes never sounds like this. “I…”

Jesse remembers a suburban neighbourhood full of secrets, a fridge devoid of leftovers, and a shared bed. He remembers an ocean liner, a week of playing cabin-boy, and a swift plunge into the water’s depths. “Do you trust me?” he asks.

“What?”

“I said, do you trust me?”

Gabriel makes a face. “I don’t trust anyone.”

Ouch, that hurt. Jesse grimaces. Tries again. “Not even me?”

Gabriel almost flinches. “It’s… different, McCree. We both know it’s different.”

“Because I’m your second? What is it, scared of fraternization charges?” With anyone else, he’d never push like this. He’d respect their reluctance. But this is Gabriel; Gabriel Reyes, who hides himself behind a multitude of concrete walls each three feet thick, all of the doors locked and barred and the keys buried so deep within him Jesse’s fairly certain he’s probably forgotten where he put them.

In truth, he’s scared of losing Gabriel. Gabriel wears so many masks every single day; like he was born for it, acquiring and discarding clothes like an actor playing multiple roles onstage in one night. Jesse knows what Gabriel likes, and what he dislikes. He doesn’t like sugar in his coffee, and only tolerates tea when it’s Ana Amari who’s making it. He loves old films, and stage plays, and even likes _sewing_ , as weird as that is. He loves mind games and puzzles and riddles, loves knowing, as everyone else knows, that he’s the smartest guy in the room even if he’ll never say it in as many words. He hates the feeling of being overwhelmed. He hates deep water.

Jesse has heard Gabriel have sex. He’s smelt it on him. He’s even _seen_ him once, part of one very weird and kind of fucked up op he’d rather not dwell on.

But that’s it. It’s always part of a mission. It’s always the other guy, the role, the fake. It’s never _him_.

Jesse McCree is scared of losing the real Gabriel Reyes. And so he pushes, in a way that he knows will rile Reyes up, because he wants him to pull his head out of the haze of fog and _see_ , for once.

“Fraternization,” Gabriel says.

“Yes,” Jesse spits back.

Reyes starts gathering up the cards on the table, quick brusque motions that Jesse knows means he’s rapidly getting very irritated and is trying not to explode. “We’re not talking about this right now, Jesse.”

“Yes we are,” Jesse growls. One hand shoots out, grabs Gabriel’s warm, bare wrist. Gabriel freezes, tries to pull back. Jesse’s grip tightens.

“Gabe. I know you don’t trust anybody. Hell, I don’t really blame you. You’re the head of Blackwatch. But you don’t have to fucking lie to _me_.”

“I don’t want to answer,” Gabriel finally says. “Leave it, Jesse.”

“It’s ‘cause you’re scared of being vulnerable, isn’t it?” McCree blurts out. From the way Gabriel violently wrenches his wrist back out of Jesse’s grip, McCree knows he’s hit the nail on the head.

“You don’t get it,” Reyes spits, leaning in over the table and knocking over one of the empty glasses with his broad chest. “You don’t know what saving the entire damn world is like, only to have all your contributions shoved under the carpet in favour of your best friend. You don’t know what it’s like to sit in on meetings and know that everyone in that room is lying directly to your face. You have no idea what it’s like to know that at every single second of the day there are at least fifty agents who live or die by whatever _you_ say. You have _no idea_ , Jesse McCree, because you’ve only ever lived and fought for _yourself_.”

The alcohol is talking, loosening his tongue, spiking his words with venom. Jesse knows about the SEP though he knows little of the details. He knows the Strike Commander can’t get drunk since his metabolism now runs too fast. Commander Reyes, however, doesn’t seem to possess this same trait. It’s why he can drink, and smoke. It’s why he needs to be more careful than Morrison about it.

McCree scowls. “ _Jesus_ , Gabe, why don’t you ever fucking tell me anythin’?”

Reyes pushes himself to his feet, chair legs skidding against the floor. The noise is awful. “And what could you possibly do about it, _Agent McCree_?”

“Fuck me.” It comes out a lot less eloquent than he’d planned.

Gabriel recoils. “No,” he says.

“I know you want to, Gabe. You’re not as good as hiding as you think. Not from me.”

Reyes clamps one hand over his mouth as if he’s going to throw up. It’s such a strange motion that Jesse finds himself scrambling to his feet. “Hey, you alright?”

“Jesse, I—fucking _God_ , I can’t do this anymore.”

Jesse stops dead in his tracks. “You can’t do what?”

“I can’t play this _game_ anymore,” and now Gabriel staggers, one hand grabbing at the edge of the table to steady himself. He fumbles for his lighter, resting on the polished wooden surface. Flicks it on, again and again, trying to get a flame going. It doesn’t work, and he growls, fingers curling into a tight fist around the silver.

“What game, boss?”

“You,” Gabriel says simply. “I’ve wanted you for years. Tried to stamp it out, for _years_. Didn’t work. But I can’t. It just… it wouldn’t be right.”

“When I was younger, maybe.” Jesse offers. “But I ain’t that seventeen year old kid from the Gorge anymore.”

Reyes looks up at him. Really _looks_ at him. “No,” he replies. “I guess you’re not.”

Jesse bites his lower lip. Sucks in a deep breath. “I know you don’t trust anyone. But can you trust me, even if just for one night? I _know_ you, Gabriel. You know me. I’d never betray you. And you’d never betray me.”

“One night,” Gabriel echoes.

“If we realise later we’re both not what each other wanted, we don’t have to do it ever again. It won’t change anythin’ between us Gabe, I promise. I’ve known you too long to let something like that change us.”

Reyes closes his eyes. Exhales once, twice, deeply. “I just want to forget the world for a few hours,” he confesses. “I just want to fucking feel _something_.”

“I’ve been told I got a great mouth,” Jesse offers. And just like that, the dam is broken. Reyes starts laughing, that deep throaty laugh that McCree has fallen in love with so many times. The commander leans heavily against his discarded chair, reaching out one hand to stabilize himself, as if he might possibly fall over.

McCree moves closer to him, tentatively allows himself to bridge the canyon. His hand brushes against Gabriel’s upper arm, bicep firm underneath the jacket he’s wearing. When Reyes doesn’t react negatively, he grows bolder, fingers curling around the taut muscle. The feel of him is so warm, so solid. The immovable wall with hairline fractures you could only see if you got too close. Gabriel Reyes, more human than all the rest of them put together.

Jesse gently pulls him closer; pulls him into the kiss. Gabriel falls into it like he’s drowning.

(Years later, McCree will often remember their first night together. Bodies moving together, slick with sweat, the sound of sex interspersed with low moans from both their mouths. Gabriel as a lover was no different than Gabriel as a tactician, or Gabriel as a fighter. In everything he put his all, his entire being. The memory of it both arouses and chills McCree the bone. And he figures that maybe the fall was inevitable after all.)

 

* * *

 

 "and i run, i run, i run, awakening my heart; but you overwhelm my lungs and it’s tearing me apart" - _winter sound_ , of monsters and men


	4. corsage of promises

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Day Four - Betrayal.

He finds Jesse sitting on the rooftop, right before the end comes.

McCree has been so… distant lately, Reyes thinks. He performs to the letter, as he always performs, but something has been wrong for a while and Gabriel wants to kick himself for being too busy to have noticed it earlier. Jesse comes back with perfect mission reports, nothing strange to go on his permanent record. Deadlock is nothing more than a distant memory.

And yet McCree’s not there. Not really.

Gabriel runs a hand over his hair, dislodging the beanie that seems to be a permanent fixture there nowadays. He’s so _tired_. His brain is running non-stop, synapses firing every nano-second, sparking again and again and _again_. When he lies down to sleep, closes his eyes and wills his body to just relax, there is no rest. He is walking through a maze, concrete walls towering either side of him, reaching high up into the blood red sky. No matter how many times he tries to navigate it, he cannot find his way out. He wanders and wanders, turning this way and that, trying to find the missing piece that he _knows_ is just inches away from his grasp.

What is he missing? What is the last clue, the single hint he needs in order to solve the riddle?

He opens his eyes at 0600 hours after a restless night of no sleep at all, and he washes away the crust from his eyes with freezing water from his bathroom sink. He drinks three cups of black coffee before the caffeine manages to set in and affect his augmented body. He sits down and eats his biotic-spiked oatmeal with listless cheer, and he gives his agents the thinnest of smiles.

He sits down to hours upon hours of paperwork and meetings and arguments over the comms with his best friend. He wishes for days where he can be back out in the field, but Medical has banned him from going for a short while, at least until they can figure out what is happening within his body and contain it. This is top secret. Nobody else knows the Commander has been restricted from field duty apart from the medical officers that have been treating him. For anyone else to know would be treason. The official reasoning given is that the Commander is busy, working more on reports and recruitment. Gabriel hasn’t even told McCree the real reason.

Reyes quietly unlocks one of his desk drawers and pulls out a high energy, biotic-infused drink that Ziegler had written him the prescription for. It tastes of lemonade. He throws it back in a single shot, blinks his eyes furiously for a few moments, and sticks the empty bottle back in the drawer. Nobody can see that.

He looks down at his trembling hands. Sighs once, twice. Time to get back to recruitment. Blackwatch has had… more deaths than usual recently. More letters of resignation. Not official ones of course; professionally worded transmissions sent two weeks in advance. The thing with Blackwatch is that each one of its members knows exactly how to drop off the record. Sometimes Reyes’ agents will just disappear. They have been doing that more often recently.

Sometimes, absurdly, he feels like he wants to cry. He can feel Blackwatch slipping from his grasp; sand through his cold, shaking fingers.

Other times, and these times are more common now; Reyes wants to throw up. Head bent over the sink, heaving and emptying his morning meal into the bowl. He will look up and see his reflection in the mirror, eyes red and skin sallow. He looks like a dead man.

He crawls into bed next to his lover and quietly asks if Jesse can be gentle with him tonight, fuck into him slowly and kiss him deeply. Quietly, Gabriel imagines it’s like their last night together. If Jesse has noticed something is off with Gabriel, he hasn’t yet mentioned it.

Gabriel Reyes walks up to Jesse McCree sitting on the rooftop at Blackwatch HQ, swinging his legs back and forth like that seventeen year old boy he no longer is. He’s smoking again, a thin cloud of it drifting up into the sunset sky, burnt reds and ambers streaking above the horizon.

“McCree.”

McCree doesn’t turn around as he says: “Hey there, Commander.”

Commander. Not Reyes, not Gabriel. Not Gabe. They are alone.

“Something wrong, McCree? You’ve been out here a long time. Gomez told me.”

Jesse sighs, gets up to his feet and turns to Gabriel. They’re the same height now, both just over six feet of broad, firm muscle. McCree has a full beard. His legs are strong, his arms tightly corded.

“Yeah, I was just thinkin’. You should know, you do a hell of a lot of it.”

His words are light, but Reyes can sense the tension underneath them. Is McCree angry at him for being distant recently? Truth be told, the more Gabriel thinks about it, the more he realises how dishonest he has been. He has tried to become Atlas again, stumble through the hallways of HQ with the weight of the world on his shoulders again. He has not told Jack everything. He has not told Jesse _anything_.

 _How can I tell him that I might be dying and our enemies might be right on our doorstep?_ Reyes thinks. _How can I tell him that they might have already gotten in? How can I tell him that I cannot eliminate the possibility that he, too, is a threat?_

McCree is a flame burning bright and hot. McCree is a son of the desert sand, a wildfire catching hold of the dry brush and incinerating it until there is nothing left but burnt black soot and ash.

There is a noose around all their necks, and Gabriel is fighting desperately to cut the cord.

Gabriel shrugs. “I’ve been busy, Jesse. I know that isn’t a great excuse, and I’m sorry. Things have been tough recently.”

McCree scoffs. “Yeah, I know Gabe. That’s why I figured I’d tell you straight up instead of just givin’ you the slip like everyone else has. You know, ‘cause somewhere deep down, I still respect you.”

Reyes frowns. “What?”

“I’m leaving. Blackwatch. And leavin’ Blackwatch means leaving you, I guess. So… there’s that.”

He says it so simply, like it’s nothing, like it’s not the end of the— _their_ _—_ world. Perhaps Gabriel _has_ been nothing to him, all this time. Perhaps all their nights together, words whispered under covers sweet and cloying, have meant nothing.

Jesse McCree is good at running and lying, Reyes knows. To him, they come like breathing.

He tries not to respond. Remains stoic. “Leaving.”

McCree laughs bitterly. “Yeah. Just as I thought. You don’t even give a shit, do you?”

Gabriel braces himself. “I don’t give a shit? Jesse, what the _fuck_ do you want me to say? That I’m pleased? That I’ll just _let_ you walk away?”

Jesse takes a hasty step back and Gabriel realises with slowly dawning horror that he had been advancing on him unconsciously, like a predator. He didn’t even _realise_ he had been moving.

“You know…” Jesse spits out, “I thought this was my _escape_ from prison. That’s how you strung it to me. All these years, I’ve followed you. I’ve done what you asked. I’ve been your second, I’ve been your shootin’ arm. I… I _love_ you, Gabe. Thought I had done the smart thing, chosen the right side for once.” He laughs bitterly. “But now I realise this was just another prison after all.”

“Blackwatch isn’t a prison,” Gabriel says carefully.

“Isn’t it?” Jesse throws his arms out wide. “You’re distant every single day, living alone in your mind where you’re the king of the world and nobody can touch you or get through to you. In your mind you’re the one who got that promotion, movin’ your little chess pieces in that game that you see around you because you don’t _trust_ anybody. You’ve been keeping secrets from me, I’m not that damn stupid. You don’t tell me anythin’ and yet at the end of the day you still crawl into bed next to me and ask me to fuck you and tell you that I love you. Well, here’s the thing. I _do_ love you, Gabe. I love you more than I love breathin’. But you’ve left me behind, and I sure as hell don’t know who you are anymore.”

Gabriel’s breath leaves him in a shuddering gasp and he realises for the first time that he’s crying, acidic tears spilling over from the corners of his eyes and slowly sliding down his cheeks. He wants to tell him. God, he wants to just open his mouth and tell Jesse everything—that they’re all in danger, that the claws are around his throat and he’s fighting desperately to pull them off. Blackwatch is crumbling beneath him, and he can no longer hold the pieces together, _for within the hollow crown, that rounds the mortal temples of a king_ _—_

McCree grabs his forearm, eyes widened. “Gabe, what the _hell_ is wrong with you?”

What is wrong with him? He doesn’t know. He doesn’t know anything anymore. Amélie, Ana, Gérard, Jack, they stand around him in his frantic dreams; grey shadows, the jury that stands to attention and tells him that he is _condemned, Gabriel Reyes, for the crime of envy and betrayal; murder and manipulation. Are you in contempt of court, Mister Reyes? The punishment will only be more severe. The chair is waiting for you, Mister Reyes, the injection is quick_ _—_

Gabriel falls to his knees and screams out into the dusk, hands over his ears. He cannot stop the voices, he cannot stop the pain. He cannot stop the ticking of the clock in his mind that is telling him his time is running out, the end is coming and he has _failed_ , the last piece of the puzzle has slipped from his grasp and been borne away on the ocean tide.

He passes out. When he wakes, he has been transported back to his bed, tucked under the covers. His lover has granted him one last act of kindness.

When Gabriel emerges from his bedroom hours later, dehydrated and dizzy, his feet take him automatically to Jesse’s quarters.

He is not entirely surprised to find them empty, not after everything he’s done, but the punch in the gut still comes; knocks the breath from his lungs and leaves him sick and hollow.

(Years later, Reyes will close his eyes for the last time, breathing in thick, cloying dust and choking on noxious fumes, buried under rubble. Reyes will embrace the end without too many regrets, believing that he might be granted clemency for his sins. The last thing Gabriel Reyes will remember seeing is blinding white light, the angel of mercy coming to guide him towards the afterlife.

Gabriel Reyes will be betrayed.

The Reaper will open his eyes to utter darkness, and every day will feel like drowning.)

 

* * *

 

"a corsage of promises and i am pinned; like a butterfly on a card, i’m naked and i’m scarred" - _tyrant_ , the bravery

 


	5. at the altar

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Day Five - Reunion.

The bounty on his head stands at sixty million, currently. Sixty million dollars, dead or alive.

Jesse McCree lays down on the cheap mattress in the cheap motel he’s rented for the night, dressed in his entire gear, hat pulled down low over his brow. One arm crossed behind his head, he drifts in and out of a light, whiskey-induced doze, flipping the cap on and off an old, silver filigree lighter. One he’d stolen.

Old habits died hard.

The holoset in the corner is on, flickering with bad motel signal, cutting back and forth between the news in Spanish and an old telenovela. Jesse’s seen this one before. The good, Catholic family is flourishing until the older, estranged brother comes back and dramatically reveals himself, having become a crime lord in the decade that he’s been away. It’s actually one of his favourites.

The air is still, hot. Jesse flips the cap on and off a few more times, musing at the transmission.

A recall. Former Blackwatch-Overwatch Agent Jesse McCree is recalled back to active duty. The request transmission has been sent by Agent Winston.

Winston.

Jesse breathes. He thought he’d left that life behind him. He thought he’d given all of that up; traded in his chips for a sixty million dollar bounty, a life on the run, sleeping with Peacekeeper under his pillow for quick draw.

He’s been given too many chances already, and now Winston wants to give him a new one. For what?

Their faces flash into his mind. Lena’s bright, cheerful smile. Reinhardt’s loud, booming voice. The halo that seemed to circle Angela’s brow. Genji’s flashing visor; the signal that he was smirking underneath. All further away and more strangers than he liked to admit. God, in all those years, had he really only come to know Gabriel? Had his entire life just been Gabriel Reyes, Blackwatch Commander?

His thumb hits the sparkwheel on its way down, and the old thing suddenly lights up, a slither of gas still left in the cartridge. Jesse stops, pulls his hat off his head, feels the metal warming in his hand and regards the tiny flame. Small and yellow and bright.

Abruptly, he flicks the cap back on again, stifling it.

Gabriel Reyes is dead, dead along with Gérard Lacroix and Ana Amari and Jack Morrison. Blew themselves up in Switzerland. Remnants of a life best forgotten.

Better to forget them all. Better to stay away; to decline Winston’s offer. No, better yet to return no reply at all—let them think he doesn’t care. He doesn’t need them. He doesn’t need Blackwatch’s leftovers.

He’s only ever fought for himself. Jesse knows that. Gabriel _told_ him that.

Why is he still taking lessons from a dead man?

McCree scowls, swings his legs off the dirty bedcover and makes his way over to the tiny, dingy bathroom. Stares at himself under the harsh yellow light. There are shadows under his eyes; his belly is softer. He is three years shy of forty, weathered and worn and tired.

Gabriel would be pushing fifty-six, Jesse thinks. Salt and pepper in his hair, specks of grey in his dark beard. Crow’s feet at the corners of his eyes, more lines between his brow and around his mouth.

He turns on the taps, splashes his face with icy water, and leans over the sink for a moment. His metal hand scrapes against the dirty porcelain.

Jesse leaves the bathroom, turning off the light behind him. He undresses and strips off the top cover of the bed and tosses it onto the floor. Laying down on the sheets, he pulls his serape around him as a makeshift blanket, slides his revolver underneath his arm. He’ll sleep on the entire damn thing.

When he wakes up five hours later with a dehydration headache caused by too much alcohol and not enough water, he thinks he’s probably ready to embrace death like all the rest who have gone before him.

He groans, reaching up one metal hand to feel his sweaty, clammy forehead. Runs the jointed fingers through his greasy hair. In Blackwatch he was always up at the crack of dawn, washed and ready and eating breakfast with the rest of them a mere half hour later.

The mini fridge in this place is empty, Jesse knows. He’d emptied it himself yesterday. If he wants water for his parched throat, he’s going to have to brave whatever comes out of those bathroom taps.

He’s survived so many things, McCree thinks. If he dies from this now, it’ll be nothing but glorious irony.

The holoset is still on; has remained on all night. Now it’s playing a film. The remake, not the original. The original is better. Tuco is desperately searching the cemetery for the right grave. Jesse shivers and pulls his serape closer around his bare shoulders. He steps over the discarded pile of clothing next to the bed, walks like a zombie to the bathroom. Switches on the light.

There’s a man sitting on his toilet.

Not— _going_ , to the toilet. The seat cover is down and he is just... sitting there, head bowed. He’s dressed in all black, hood pulled up over his face.

As Jesse merely stares in horror, half-asleep and head pounding, the man looks up.

It’s not a man at all. It’s not a man but a...  _thing_ , a horrible ghost, _la Lechuza_ itself, face bone white and garish.

Jesse instinctively switches the light back off and on again, just in case this is all still part of a nightmare and somehow the Thing will go away.

It doesn’t.

The Grim Reaper stares at him from the toilet seat, and Jesse knows he’s about to die. Peacekeeper is lying happily on the bed; if he turns around and runs to grab it he has no doubt the Thing will move, he knows it will move quicker than Jesse’s feet can carry him—

“You’ve grown careless, McCree,” Death growls. From the gaps where Jesse assumes a mouth would be, tendrils of black smoke drift upwards.

“What the _hell_ are you?” Jesse demands the spectre.

The figure turns and jostles the cheap, ill fitting tank lid with one spiked elbow. Jesse watches incredulously as it makes a low, _tch_ sound, then twists around to straighten it. The shadow stands up. He’s as tall as McCree is, broad and menacing, and Jesse ever so slowly backs out of the doorway.

“Don’t move,” the shadow orders, and something within Jesse’s soul commands him to _obey_.

So he does. The serape slips from his shoulders and lands on the brown carpet, and he realises that he’s still clad in nothing but his boxer shorts.

The thing that stands before him is barely human. McCree’s hands twitch for the feel of his gun; Peacekeeper’s solid weight firm in his hand.

“What _are_ you?” he whispers, voice small and terrified.

The figure merely stares at him. Its head raises and lowers ever so slightly as McCree guesses it’s inspecting his prosthetic arm, eyes raking over him for any sign of weakness. Then as he watches, horrified, it slowly reaches one hand into the smoky crevices of its long cloak.

“Don’t—” Jesse begins, voice dying in his throat as the shadow pulls out what looks like a small transmitter; holds it up to the bathroom light.

It takes Jesse a solid ten seconds to recognize the make. A unique design, only used by one special ops team in the entire world. Now an antiquated relic.

“How did you get that?” he asks quickly. “Tell me, or I’ll shoot.”

“With what gun?” the shadow asks in a low rumble, slowly chuckling. His laugh turns Jesse’s blood to ice in his veins.

“I’m warnin’ you—”

“Don’t give me orders, ingrate.”

Jesse shuts up immediately. The voice sounds… familiar somehow. Is Death supposed to sound familiar?

“...do I… know you?”

A pause. Then, cryptically, “in more ways than one.”

McCree figures it’s time to accept his fate. He can’t outrun it forever.

“If… if you’re Death,” he says evenly. “Would you… could you do me a favour? Let me like, put my clothes on and have one last smoke; die with my gun in my hands, that sort of thing?”

He’s not being too unreasonable, is he?

The shadow cocks his head to the side. “What brand of cigars?”

Wait, what?

“The hell you mean?” Jesse begins. “Why the hell do you wanna know what kind of—”

He stops. Squints at the bone mask. Runs his eyes very slowly down the entire length of the Thing’s body.

“I’m offended,” the figure says. “Would have thought with the amount of times you’ve been between these legs, you’d at least know them by sight.”

Oh hell. Oh sweet _Jesus_ no.

“No…” Jesse gasps. “No, you’re dead. You’re fuckin’ _dead_ , I watched the news reports, I cried for weeks over you, you’re—how the _hell_ did you find me?”

He’s being haunted by his sins. The deepest circle of Hell was reserved for traitors, after all.

The shadow of a man he once loved clutches the tiny transmitter between one clawed fist and laughs; that deep rumble Jesse suddenly knows as well as he knows breathing.

“All Overwatch transmissions sent to Agent McCree’s inbox still run through the account of Commander Gabriel Reyes first,” he replies simply. “You never disabled the feature, because you didn’t know it was there. A safety measure I put in place to monitor Overwatch-Blackwatch relations. 'Cept all those years, not a peep from them to you. No connection; no contact. Overwatch didn’t need or want Agent McCree after he left. Until now. And I got my chance.”

Jesse feels his legs give out beneath him, ass hitting the floor with a loud and painful thump. He stares up into the incomprehensible face of his ex-lover.

“Mind games _now_?” he asks. “Still playin’ your little games of chess, still the king? And what am I, his jester?”

Reyes takes one step towards him, boots overly loud in the silence, and Jesse shuffles back on the carpet, terrified. Jesse has no idea if he’s staring at him, behind that horrible mask.

“The king is dead,” Reyes says. “The Reaper lives.”

“Reaper?” Jesse chokes out. “What kind of— _Gabriel_?”

“Gabriel?” Reaper laughs. “Gabriel Reyes was a fool and a coward. Gabriel Reyes was _weak_. Gabriel Reyes was too afraid to commit to what had to be done.”  
  
“What had to be done?” Jesse spits. “The fuck you talkin’ about?”

“We are both wanted men.”

“ _I’m_ a wanted man. You’re a _dead_ man. And you’re gone in more ways than one if you think—”

The Reaper reaches down with one gauntleted hand and grabs Jesse McCree by the throat, lifting him up as if he weighed nothing.

“Reyes was betrayed,” he sneers. “A feint, a trap. It shattered the land. The lighter is lit, the gas _burns_. Gabriel died. I am the Messenger. I am the Reaper. Death comes for all.” He snarls out the words.

“The _hell_ —”

“He drowned in his own blood, was crushed under rubble and choked on dust and thrown in the dirt pit to _suffer_. I am the Tower.” He raises the barrel of a shotgun to McCree’s head; McCree has no idea where it came from. “And you are the Hanged Man.”

Jesse grabs at the offending wrist around his throat; doesn’t waste time trying to force away Reaper’s enhanced strength. In desperation, he smashes the heel of his hand straight into the white mask. The shock runs straight up his entire arm, but the claws at his throat do not clench. In the instant he has bought, he flings himself backward, tearing free. He lunges across the room towards the bed, grabs hold of Peacekeeper, whirls around frantically.

The two men stand across from each other, guns raised and ready to fire. The Reaper’s mask is askew. Slowly, ever so slowly, he moves to take it off.

Bile rises to the back of Jesse’s throat. He wants to throw up at the utter mess he is seeing—the ruined, melted flesh, the broken nose. Milky blind eyes stare back at him, red rimmed and gaping. The mouth, more a Glasgow smile than a mouth anymore, reveals blackened, rotting gums and teeth underneath twisted lips. McCree smacks his other hand under Peacekeeper’s grip to support it.

“I thought I was ready to die,” Jesse manages to stammer out. “But I ain’t dyin’ now, not to the likes of you.”

The Reaper merely stands there, shotguns raised. “In Blackwatch,” he says, smoke hissing past his nostrils, “nothing is real.”

“What?”

“If you answer that recall—” Reaper continues, “— _Agent_ , I will kill you. This is your last choice, Jesse McCree. The last choice I will give you.”

The Reaper carefully replaces his mask and turns to leave, arms falling slack and shotguns lowered. Jesse takes his chance. He fires a single bullet into the Reaper’s back, right where his heart would be.

Reaper stops moving. There is augmented bone and metal all the way down his spine that appears to be keeping him standing. Jesse swallows. Reaper’s back stiffens.

“If only that still worked,” he says simply, before dissolving into black smoke.

Jesse drops his gun, throws himself forward to try and grab a handful of the dark cloud. It flows easily through his fingers, icy and ethereal. He curses.

For a moment, the motel room is silent in Reaper’s wake. Then Jesse starts dry heaving, bent over the carpet on his hands and knees, mouth open and gasping for air.

He sits there shuddering, knees drawn up to his bare chest, a seven year old orphan again, alone and terrified, clutching the handle of a gun too large and heavy for his hand. He is fourteen years old, standing over the bloody body of the first man he ever kills, barrel still smoking, breath wheezing. He is seventeen, hands cuffed behind his back, staring across a table at the only man he would trust to give him another chance at life.

He is seventeen.

Jesse McCree fumbles for his datapad. Hastily types in a message, presses send. 

He sits. He breathes.

Then he reaches for his gun.

(Years later, the gunslinger will follow the man in black for the last time, and this time he will catch up. Both of them will stop running.)

 

* * *

 

"leave me at the altar, knowing all the things you just escaped" - _landfill_ , daughter


	6. illusions of love

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Day Six - Sacrifice.

The Reaper is on the move. He travels mostly by night; by day he catches small moments of sleep, shotguns always within reach. He starts up north and hits up bases along the coast, dips in and out of the Midwest. He’s chasing a trail, breaking into abandoned Overwatch Watchpoints and retrieving information. He briefly considers popping down to southern California, but quickly quashes the thought. There is nothing there that the Reaper needs. Or wants. In each base, he leaves an enticing trail, just enough to keep Overwatch wanting. Signs of shotgun fire here, a few incriminating notes there. Talon knew how to draw them in, keep them wanting and unsatisfied. One only had to look at Widowmaker’s absurd outfit.

He considers stopping in Sante Fe, paying an ancient woman a visit. She wouldn’t recognize him. She has never met the Reaper in her entire life. But the Reaper knows who she is. She could have been the ghost’s sister-in-law.

The scorching desert sun beats down upon him, bakes his tight black leather, but he always feels cold. The oily, icy smoke in his lungs curls around his lips as he breathes in and out, evenly.

He is being followed. The man he wanted to—nearly did—kill in that dirty motel room three years ago in Colorado. It was only thanks to that Monkey’s urgent transmission that he knew where McCree would even be—he has the paranoid antics of Gabriel Reyes to thank for that.

Reaper has a lot to thank Gabriel Reyes for, even as he damns the ghost with every painful breath he draws into his rotting lungs.

In Arizona, he waits. He is not sure entirely why, but something compels him to. Being compelled is not an altogether unfamiliar sensation to him, so he acquiesces. This land is unfamiliar to him, bare and acrid and still. The Reaper is used to nighttime patrols, freezing cold warehouses and the sterilized, minimalist insides of air transports. He is used to pinpricks of metal embedded in his spine, the quiet crackle of electricity. He is used to tanks of burning black water, of being utterly consumed and lost in the deep darkness, opening his mouth and filling his lungs with the depths.

Somebody else before that had been used to military bases, the frantic yell of the battlefield, the urgent push of the freeway and the dense crush of people in an overcrowded city.

Neither of them are this.

Reaper stands still in the thin shade of a giant Saguaro; a slither of black, stark and unfamiliar against tan and baked gold. He is a stranger here. The desert knows it. The desert does not welcome him. A rattlesnake slithers past one booted foot. He crushes its head with one heavy boot, feels the crunch of bone underneath. Then, morbidly, he squats down to examine the snake’s corpse. There is a gruesome smear of blood on the dry grass. He shifts away from it.

A memory comes to the forefront of his mind. A training ring, a smear of red across one hand from where it was wiped past a broken nose. A face, tan and slightly freckled, laughing with bloodied teeth.

Reaper quashes it like he did the rattlesnake. That ghost is here again, trying to crawl his way back. A red mist is descending upon him. He watches it draw closer and closer, steps carefully even.

When the gunslinger finally catches up, the Reaper stands up from where he has been idly squatting in the shrubby grass, poking around at the dry earth with one taloned finger.

McCree stands braced, legs slightly apart. His hand does not yet touch his revolver, but it lingers close by.

“You found me,” Reaper says into the desert heat.

“You _wanted_ to be found,” McCree scoffs. Underneath the brim of his hat, his forehead is glistening with sweat. His breathing is ever so slightly pitched. Wherever his transport is, he made sure to leave it far enough away that Reaper would not be able to find its location. He has been walking for a quite a while. Walking to his midday rendezvous under the high noon sun.

Reaper shrugs. “Now you have.”

“What do you _want_ , Reaper?” McCree sighs exasperatedly. “Haven’t we grown tired of this cat-and-mouse game?”

“Have we?” Reaper asks, mockingly. “I didn’t realise you were following me so _eagerly_.” He is pushing, pushing for a reaction. Jesse McCree is a man of action, after all.

“Bull-fucking- _shit_. Stop messin’ around. You _know_ this whole region’s my watch. You _know_ we’ve been tracking you for months with no lead. And yet now you decide to show yourself _here_ of all places. I ain’t stupid. What’s your angle?”

“I needed some supplies. I considered paying a visit to your sister, but—too gauche. Wanted it to just be me and you, in the end. More _romantic_ that way.”

“The hell are you doin’ here?” McCree demands. His mouth twists. He’s angry.

“You really think I’d tell you?”

McCree scowls. “What’s to stop me puttin’ another bullet in you right now?”

“Has that ever worked before?” Reaper retorts, and McCree’s mouth closes with an audible sound.

“Is this it, then?” McCree asks. “Is this our destiny? Chasin’ each other forever, ‘cause you can’t just seem to die?”

“I suppose you could always die first,” Reaper replies casually. “That would definitely solve at least one problem. I could do it for you if you’d like.” One finger caresses the side of his shotgun. He waits for the Overwatch agent to react, to draw his gun in response.

“Yeah,” McCree chuckles softly. His hand doesn’t touch Peacekeeper. “Here’s the thing. I’m startin’ to think you can’t.”

Reaper scowls behind his mask, doesn’t reply. McCree shifts, clearly uncomfortable in the heat.

Here’s the thing: Reaper stopped moving for a purpose. He found something in an old Watchpoint that interested him, and so he stopped moving. Waited for McCree to find him, because he knew McCree would. Why did he?

Suddenly he cannot remember. Why is he here? What is his mission? His mission is to infiltrate old Overwatch bases in the Western United States, to bring Talon information. His mission is to... His mission…

There is a tank of water in the giant room. He is an animal, being led to drink. He reaches in, grasps a handful of the clear liquid. Somebody snarls, grabs the back of his neck and forces his face into it instead. It is freezing, the water is burning, he cannot breathe, he falls into the deep—

He shakes his head furiously. The ghost is haunting again. The ghost is dead is dead was weak and is _dead_.

McCree is watching him guardedly.

“In Colorado,” Reaper begins, ignoring the other man’s discomfort, “you were so desperate to live. Why?”

Jesse doesn’t even hesitate. “I have to,” he replies. “You’re my sin, my biggest regret. Don’t you _see_ , Reaper? I _have_ to kill you. I have to put you down like the dog you’ve become. Ain’t nobody else can do it but me. Ain’t nobody else got the _right_.”

Something cracks. Reaper laughs. He cannot help himself. It bubbles up within him, leaks out through the gash of his mouth. McCree flinches visibly at the sound, face curling into a disgusted sneer when thick black smoke escapes the slits in the mask. Reaper laughs and laughs and laughs. The mirror shatters; the water’s surface breaks, ripples forming outward. Somebody has thrown a stone into it.

He has done it.

Gabriel Reyes opens his eyes. Breathes once, twice. Feels the prickle of sweat begin to form under his collar. He smiles.

“Hell,” he begins, “I _taught_ you better, Jesse. I taught you everything you know.”

There is a moment of utter stillness.

“Not everythin’,” Jesse replies slowly. “I still got a few tricks of my own.” His back straightens. His hand tenses. “Who… are you?” he asks, testing the air.

“A man who should be dead,” Reyes replies. “I don’t have long.”

McCree takes one step back. “I don’t trust you,” he says slowly, eyes narrowing. “I know the shit Talon pulled with Amélie Lacroix. You’re good at acting. How do I know this ain’t a trap?”

“You don’t,” Reyes says simply. “But I don’t have the time to prove it to you, so either you shoot me now and destroy any hope you have of winning this war, or you sit down and fucking _listen_. I don’t have much time before he comes back.”

McCree takes a few moments to consider. “Speak,” he says coldly. “But I’ve got my gun ready. If you try anythin’ funny—”

Reyes shrugs, turns on the safety on his own twin shotguns. “If this’ll help,” he offers. His posture slackens. He relaxes properly for the first time in four years. The dry grass underfoot snaps under his boots, the air is quiet and still. A few minutes pass between them, mentor and student, commander and agent. Lover and lover. A hawk screeches overhead, shattering the deadly silence of the desert.

McCree cuts right to the chase. “Question everything,” he says. “Are you… are you seriously suggesting that unconsciously, underneath all of that— _whatever_ Talon did to him, Gabriel Reyes managed to push back Reaper? How the hell—”

“I wasn’t stubborn as an old mule for nothing,” Reyes says. He laughs. “Why do you think Reaper’s still alive? By all rights he should be dead. _I_ should be dead.”  

“So how _are_ you still alive? And talkin’ to me? How the hell does any of this work?” His hand is still too close to Peacekeeper’s holster, Reyes notices. Keeping his words light, but body tense. He still doesn’t trust him. Smart kid. Smart man.

Reyes shrugs. “Good genetics. Except in my case you could probably say _too_ good. _Exceedingly_ good; enough to backfire and start killing you from the inside.” He lightly taps the side of his head with one claw. _Tap. Tap. Tap_. “Here's the thing with experimental medical science. It's _experimental_. You can't always predict the outcome.”

The SEP.

“So what happened?” Jesse demands. He moves closer into the Saguaro’s shade. A step closer to Reaper. To Reyes.

“Well you know what happened to Morrison,” Reyes says, crossing his arms casually. “Enhanced reflexes, strength, speed. Higher metabolic rate, stronger tissues and joints. They took a bone sample from him once, determined that his was now three times stronger than that of the average human.”

“I didn't ask about Jack Morrison. I asked about you.”

“Me? Well I got some of the same stuff, but not to the same degree as him. My body wasn't terrible, but it wasn't _quite_ as good. Wasn’t a total ripoff though, since… you see, the brain is one of the most calorie-guzzling organs in the entire body. It controls the entire nervous system, all of your most basic functions. What makes you human. And most of those drugs went straight there. I was always a smart kid, ain't about to sell myself short, but suddenly... I could think clearer, quicker. They ran countless IQ tests. I won't tell you the ridiculous number I got. Why do you think they made me head of the covert ops division? Use your head, McCree. It's what I've been doing for decades.”

Jesse frowns. Reyes continues. “But there's always a drawback. Both of us know that, don't you?” He nods at Jesse's arm, moves his gaze upwards along the length of his body until they're staring at each other right in the eyes.

“Close your left eye,” he asks.

“Why?” Jesse asks, too quickly. Reyes tilts his head back, gazes up at the sun.

“Ah. So I was right,” he says to the yellow disc.

“Right about _what_?” Jesse spits. “Stop talking in circles.”

Reyes closes his eyes against the glare, feels the mask heat up under the sun’s rays. “You always close your left eye to aim,” he says. “You always shoot with your right hand. Now, tell me. How long has your right eye been failing you, failing you to the point you became too slow with your trigger?” He looks down, nods at Jesse's prosthetic, “—until one day it cost you a limb? How long till you’ve got a dead eye?”

His words cut right to the quick. Jesse cannot reply. He feels raw inside, like Reyes has taken a scrubbing brush and scoured him clean. His ex-lover sighs.

“I planned for everything,” Reyes confesses. “Had every move plotted out, knew every counterattack. Even had multiple contingency plans for my own death, depending on the way it happened. Factored in every single possibility. Except for one.”

“Which one?” Jesse asks, already knowing the answer.

“Falling in love with my own damn subordinate,” Reaper says simply. “And in the end, that's what they used.”

“They—Talon?”

“Talon, Blackwatch, the U.N. Security Council. Three sides of the same—eh, you get the idea. Riddle me this, McCree,” he asks. “How do you kill somebody who can’t die?”

“Can’t die?”

“Think about it. You were young when the Crisis ended, but that doesn’t matter. Think about the aftermath. The Omnics have been defeated, the world saved. What happens?”

“You get heroes,” McCree replies.

Reyes nods. “Heroes… and thanks to their own damn meddling, super-soldiers. The best of the best. The heroes of humanity. Two of them, in fact. Nigh inseparable.” He sighs deeply, rubs one gauntlet over the bridge of the mask’s nose. “Powerful men would never be able to kill them. That they knew. If they took us out through assassination or similar means, that wouldn’t kill us. You would just end up with martyrs, with gods. But…” he trails off. Stares up at the sky again. “If you can make them kill _each other_ …” 

“What happened?”

“They knew they had to destroy Morrison and Reyes as a duo,” Reyes says simply. “It was planned right from the start. Blackwatch. Overwatch. Same goals, different methods. It was all a trap to force us apart. Kill two birds with one stone. Morrison and Reyes, sacrificed for the greater good. Genius really; some part of me even admires the construction, the staging was _exquisite_. Give one of them the gold and glory, give the other the cloudy dregs at the bottom of the wine cup. We were bound to step on each other’s toes at some point, there was bound to be conflict. Everything they did was to destroy Morrison and Reyes from the inside. But they didn’t expect Reyes and McCree.”

“What about us?” McCree asks.

Reyes looks at him, regards him with a careful air. “One of the things you think you’re always in control of; your own relationship. You can’t choose your family, but you _can_ choose your partner. Or so you think.”

“I don’t understand.”

“It was all part of their plan,” Reyes says. “Us. You and me. They planned it. They _created_ it.”

Jesse’s face is like an open book. He stands there, slack-jawed and incredulous. After a few minutes of gaping, he collects himself. “Okay, so what was with the stage act in Colorado? The hell was _that_ about?”

“It still affects me,” Reaper admits. “He’s still _there_. It’s like we… moments of confusion, it's fuzzy. I get… disoriented, angry. …I managed to shake off the mental programming, after a time. Some parts were harder than others. Sometimes I had to…” he stops, rolls his shoulders back uncomfortably. “...help the re-calibration along a bit. They were good. Oh, they were _good_. Colorado was… Him. But you know something, McCree?”

“What?”

“If you come at the king, you'd best not miss. And they missed something vital.”

“Which was...?”

“...that you are and always will be a free agent.”

“What? I don't understand. Didn't you just say they forced us together? That we were nothing but a lie?”

“They did. The seed was already planted in both our minds. They nurtured it, nourished it. They made it grow. And like a gardener, they manipulated it the way they wanted it to be. You ever wonder why we’ve been trying to kill each other for three whole years and never succeeded? One part programming, two parts memory. We know each other too damn well. You know every single one of my weaknesses, and I know yours. It’s an even match, a stalemate.”

McCree’s breathing has picked up. There’s a slight wind now, blowing in through the valley. From somewhere Reyes can hear the sound of a rattler. Everywhere around them is death; from the hawk up above, scanning the horizon for its prey down to the worms that slither around within the carcasses of beasts, devouring them from the inside out. Not a scrap is wasted, out here in the desert. It’s a dog-eat-dog world, a far cry from the city where Gabriel was born.

This is McCree’s hunting ground. A son of the sand.

“You were supposed to die in that motel room, McCree. That was the order,” he tells him truthfully. “A blood sacrifice. The final piece of the puzzle.”

“To die…” McCree begins.

“To sleep, perchance to dream.” Reyes finishes. “One of my favourites. Overanalyzed, of course, and overhyped. But there’s something there that just _clicks_ , doesn’t it?”

“I’m not seein’ all of this,” McCree says truthfully.

“Neither do I,” Reyes admits. “There are some pieces I’m still searching for. I couldn’t do anything for years, not after they created him. He is… nothing but rage. Destruction embodied. The deepest pressurized level of the ocean, where monsters lurk.”

He takes a step towards McCree; reaches out for him with one spiked gauntlet. McCree lets him. Reyes reaches up to touch Jesse’s face, stops right at the last second before leather makes contact with skin. The hand remains there, hovering. An inch between them. A lifetime, now.

“Reaper hates you,” Reyes tells him quietly. “Reaper wants to pull out your lungs and dance on your grave. He is winning. Everyday I remain in this body I feel him taking over, more and more. He is _winning_ , and the only reason I am able to stand here before you now and warn you is because I happened to stumble upon something in one of those abandoned bases that I was not supposed to see.”

“What was it?” Jesse asks softly.

“In one of the data logging areas, in a locker used once by a single agent and then abandoned after he was reassigned. A single pack of cheap cigarettes, never opened.”

 _His_ cigarettes.

“Can I break your programming?” McCree asks. “Am I able to do that? If I stayed around you long enough, would it work?”

“The programming is already breaking,” Reyes replies. “After you survived. The perfect tale they wove is falling apart at the seams; the plot holes are becoming more visible. But we simply don’t have enough time. I’m fighting him, Jesse. Everyday I’m fighting Reaper. But the mind is _tired_ , and his body is strong.”

Reyes staggers suddenly, his legs giving out beneath him. He falls forward; Jesse grabs him deftly and keeps him upright. He stumbles back himself with the weight. Reaper’s body is unbelievably heavy; much heavier than Gabriel had ever been.

“I want to help you,” McCree pleads. “Please, if there’s any way I can help you, break the programming, bring you back—”

“Kill me,” Reyes says into McCree’s shoulder. “It’s the only way to stop him completely. It’s the only way you or your friends will ever be safe. It’s the only way Overwatch will ever be able to stop him. Reaper is only alive because Reyes is, deep down in the recesses of his mind.”

“To hell with safe!” McCree hisses, pushing at Reyes’ shoulders to look him square in the eye. “When the hell have I ever fuckin’ wanted _safe_?”

“This isn’t about _you_ ,” Reyes snarls, pushing back with his full strength. He shoves Jesse easily, the younger man stumbling back in surprise, trying to regain his footing. “Give me _peace_ , McCree. We are done. There is nothing left we can do, and there is nothing you can do but let me _die_. I know how, too. I know how to kill him. I could tell you, you could finally be free—”

“I won’t kill you, Gabe,” Jesse says. “You could ask anythin’ of me, anythin’ at all, but that. I’m not sacrificing Gabriel Reyes for Reaper. He doesn’t deserve you.”

Reyes growls low in his throat, darts backwards and grabs for his shotguns. In an instant he has them raised to fire, safety turned off.

“Don’t make me force you,” he says coldly, the voice of the Commander once again. “This is an _order._ You were so eager to do it before, why can’t you do it now?”

“That was before you told me that you were still there inside him; that you were _alive_. Besides… I never was one for followin’ orders.”

“Do it!” Reyes screams at him. It echoes in the valley, bouncing off the pale brown rock. “Kill him _now_ , before he comes back!”

The black cloud is appearing on the horizon again, dark and stormy, rolling in from over the sea. The wind is picking up, the waves are churning, creatures of the deep are slowly uncoiling from their slumber and opening their giant mouths to swallow him up whole.

The yawning cavern rushes up to greet him, the lid of the tank is open and he is falling in, his lungs are burning, he is drowning.

“In Blackwatch, nothing is real.” Reaper says dully, a defense mantra. His eyes are dead. His body is numb. He will make the ghost _pay_ later for his sins.

“Yeah,” McCree agrees, realizing what has just happened. “But we ain’t Blackwatch anymore.” Quick as a whip, Peacekeeper is out of its holster, aimed squarely at Reaper’s chest. “This might not kill you,” he says firmly. “But it sure as hell will slow you down. You don’t know the desert like I do. If I left you here, you’d die.”

Reaper laughs bitterly. The two men stand in the desert valley, facing each other at an impasse. Then a gun fires. The sudden sound rips through the deathly stillness of the Sonoran.

One of them falls. A sacrifice to the gods of the desert, thirsty for blood. The heavens must be sated.

(Time is running out.)

 

* * *

 

"did she make you cry, make you break down; shatter your illusions of love?" - _gold dust woman_ , fleetwood mac


	7. chase the sun

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Day Seven - Alternate Universe.

Jesse McCree dies.

He falls through the darkness, through the wispy claws of the River Styx that pull at his clothes and caress his jaw. They run up and down his legs, under his feet and around his wrists, chilling him to the bone, raw and violated. He travels down and down, pulled by the current, sinking deeper and deeper into the utter silence, the roar of nothingness. His lungs are burning with lack of oxygen. He feels cold. He feels so cold.

And then, like a pin dropping, he is deposited onto solid packed earth. He lands on his feet unsteadily, nearly stumbling over. He looks around.

It is as if he is standing onstage in the spotlight. Though he can see himself, and about a foot around him in any direction, immediately outside of his radius is nothing but a swirling dark mass. He moves one foot forward. The circle of light comes with him. He reaches out one hand to try and touch the darkness. It shies away from his hand, as if he were oil within water.

He sighs.

“Where are we _now_?” he asks, exasperated. “I ain’t here for another round of confusing exposition. Stop messin’ around.”

There is no reply. The utter emptiness of sound within the void is startlingly loud in his ears. If he were to scream, nobody would hear him. If he were to start walking, he would have no idea where to go.

With nothing else to do, he thinks. The words that Reyes had told him back in the desert swirl around in his head like thick black tar. Decades of careful planning. To fight omnics, they improved humanity. Experimental science. Produced two men who were sharper, faster, stronger than the rest of them. A success. The power couple who saved the world. During the Crisis, it was all they had on their minds. But after that, in the aftermath, when war gave way to rebuilding and establishing a taskforce, the mindset had shifted somewhere. The two soldiers, if need be, could have conquered the world. They were more powerful, more loved than anyone else. And so they were re-classified as a threat.

From that instant, Morrison and Reyes were doomed. Better and stronger than the rest of humanity; super-soldiers who couldn’t be matched… the only way to kill them would be for them to destroy each other. Blackwatch was their creation; all a ploy from the beginning. And when he had become involved, when he and Gabe had formed a connection, he’d damned himself too. The story had been written, Talon’s mark all over it. Jesse McCree and Gabriel Reyes, a tragic love affair. In the end, both of them would fall.

He was supposed to have died years ago in a dirty motel room in Colorado. Why didn’t he? What held Reaper back?

_You are and always will be a free agent._

Jesse’s brain is starting to hurt. He needs a smoke. Reaching into his left pocket, he pulls out a slim case of cigars. Flicks it open. Takes one out, and automatically pops it in his mouth to bite off the end. Then he stops. Pulls it back out and stares at it for a moment, twirling it slowly between his metal fingers.

Is this Talon’s? Can he trust anything about himself anymore?

Suddenly, McCree’s not so sure he wants to light it. He’d give anything for a packet of cigarettes instead. Too bad he’s fairly sure there are no shops around here, no convenience store he can visit at 2 a.m in his pyjamas to buy milk and come home to find his takeout has been eaten.

Cigarettes. A key that somehow helped knock Gabriel back in for a few minutes. A Deadlock habit of his; one Reyes (Talon?) had stamped out in the end. Something before the story. Something uniquely Jesse.

Ophelia drowns, he remembers, in the play. The Titanic sinks. God, he could really fucking do with a bit less water.

He starts walking aimlessly, because at least moving his legs is better than just standing there in the void. The sound of his spurs jingling is comforting. A single grounding reminder of who he is.

They’d played him too, Jesse knows now. Only he wasn’t as quick as Gabriel—he hadn’t had the mental fortitude to see it before Gabe did. The things Talon did, the things they pushed him towards… he was a tiny boat on the choppy waves, being steered towards the dark tower rising steeply out of the ocean.

He rubs at the skull on the brushed metal of his left arm, scowling. Deadeye; skills they had taught him in Blackwatch. All power comes with a price.

He closes his left eye with a sigh. The vision in his right eye is poor—had started to fail after he’d left Blackwatch. Had only gotten worse over the years. In the mornings sometimes the sclera is violently red; the same angry shade as his serape. Before long he’ll be blind. Talon’s legacy.

Gabriel knew. Gabriel always knew.

The experiments of the SEP had become too successful, with Gabriel. His mind was too much; moving too quickly. In everything he saw a puzzle, a conflict, a game of chess. Gabriel’s mind had become a prison, trapping him inside four thick concrete walls and stifling his screams for help. In everyone he had seen an enemy; in everything a courtroom. Gabriel Reyes on trial. The punishment? Pure water.

He continues walking along the path through darkness, twirling the cigar. If he grows truly desperate, he’ll light it. But the idea leaves him cold inside.

For hours, he walks in what could probably be circles, thinking, mulling until his brain hurts. He doesn’t end up lighting the cigar, but he chews on the end so viciously he tastes the flavour anyway. Cumin and cardamom. A uniquely Gabriel flavour. Or was that something they’d made both of them enjoy?

Gabriel. Gabriel. The Messenger of God. The Archangel. Reyes, the kings. Two of them. Black and white, standing opposite one another on different sides of the chessboard. The dark tower. The messenger king, gone mad within his suffering. Called out for relief, but there was no cure to be found.

And his… enemy? Lover? Son? The crown prince; the hanged man. Tried for treason and cut down, as was only right. As was just.

_Crunch._

Jesse stops, looks down at what he’s just stepped on. Where there once was hard, packed earth, now there is… grass. Dry patchy grass. Like the desert. 

He looks at his boot for a moment. Puts it down again with more force, satisfied at the sound of it under his heel. He’ll follow the grass.

As he follows the pathway, another light starts to appear in the distance. Tiny at first, the barest pinprick of white, like the aperture of a camera. He moves closer, and the circle of light grows bigger, eventually revealing its image. He walks up the narrow hallway towards the concrete throne, bathed in light.

The king sits there. He is slumped down low, arms slack on the armrests at his sides. The hollow crown of silver he wears is slipping down his brow, falling over one eye. He is wearing his Blackwatch gear. His eyes are closed. His kingdom is lost. Jesse approaches, and the king opens his eyes. Where Reaper was blind; milky white film over both his eyes, Reyes’ pupils are dark and blown. Windows to the soul.

Reyes watches his supplicant slowly approach the steps up to his throne. He looks so _weary_.

“Boss,” McCree begins. His voice comes out as merely a rasp, his throat parched. He coughs, tries again. “Reyes.”

The king shakes his head. “Gabriel.”

“Gabe,” Jesse replies. “Where are we now?”

Reyes looks down at him. As Jesse moves closer, he can see that the crown is made of spun silver filigree, twisted cruelly into the shape of thorns. The light around him shines from a dozen lit candles set on dark metal holders around his throne. A shrine. Gabriel’s tribute.

“I’d say,” he says in a dull, low monotone, “that we’re at the very bottom of the sea.”

Jesse grits his teeth. “This is the end then? This is how we go out?”

Reyes shrugs listlessly. “Not me. Just you. If you’re content with that.”

“Am I—of course I ain’t fuckin’ _content_ with that.”

Reyes sits up straighter on the throne. His clothes are dirty with faint smears of blood and grime. He looks just like he did in Blackwatch, having just come back from a mission. It’s the little imperfections, the flaws in the picture, that tell Jesse he is very much real. This is real.

“So what are you going to do about it?” Gabriel asks.

Jesse frowns at him, jaw dropping slack in surprise. “What am I… what do you _think_ I am? Where do you think we are? I’m dead, Gabriel! You fuckin’ shot me!”

“I did. I didn’t mean to.”

“Well ain’t that just peachy,” Jesse mutters, turning away. He reaches into his pocket for the lighter he keeps there. Talon or not, he needs this cigar. This thumb flicks down on the sparkwheel, once, twice. Except this time, the cartridge is empty. The metal is cold and empty in his hand. Frustrated, Jesse curses and drops the useless cigar onto the ground, grinds it into a mess with the heel of his boot.

“Finally ran out, huh?” Gabriel asks from the throne. He shifts slightly in his seat, kevlar against concrete. That thing can’t be comfortable at _all_. “Figures.”

“Yeah,” Jesse replies. He pivots on his heel, tosses the lighter back to its rightful owner. Gabriel moves to catch it deftly, hand striking out like a cobra. He looks down at the lighter on his palm.

“Thought I’d lost this thing, the day you left,” he confesses. “When I realised you were gone. Tried to smoke—and it wasn’t there. Things were so fuzzy back then. Wasn’t sure if I’d lost it in the chaos that was occurring, or if you had taken it. Eventually figured I’d just lost it. I didn’t think you would have wanted a memento of me.”

“I loved you,” Jesse says. Flinches, tries again. “I _love_ you.” Present tense. “But I ain’t sure about us, anymore. Not sure if it’s all tainted now.”  
  
Reyes studies him for a few moments. Then slowly, agonizingly, he reaches up and gently removes the crown from around his head and sets it down on one thigh. He leans forward, hands steepled under his jaw. A thinking gesture.

“The greatest lies always contain a kernel of truth,” he says. “You can’t build something from nothing. In the end, they sought to destroy us because together we would have been too strong. We could have been unstoppable, McCree. That’s why they brought out the big guns. And in the end—” he sighs, runs a hand over his short cropped hair, “—that’s why they won. That’s why you’re here, and you’re dead. And yet...” he trails off.

“And yet?”

“Doesn’t this strike you at all as very rough around the edges? Like the entire picture isn’t there? That somehow… all of this is unfinished?”

“Yeah,” Jesse agrees truthfully. “I haven’t understood anythin’ for a fair few years now.”

“The less you try to understand, the more you might come to know.”

So _Gabriel_ , in the end. All his cryptics, his little word and mind games. The smartest man in the room.

“...I’m guessin’ this is the bad ending, huh?” Jesse asks.

Reyes chuckles softly. “Something like that.”  
  
“Well damn,” Jesse breathes. “Well damn it all.”

Gabriel slowly reaches into one jacket pocket and pulls out a packet of cigarettes, the kind Jesse used to smoke. He pulls two of them out, taps them lightly against the cardboard. Then he twists in his seat and lights them both on one of the candles near his elbow. Puts one in his mouth. Holds out the other. An offering.

McCree takes one step up higher towards the concrete throne. As every second takes him closer, he is eminently aware of his heart pounding, the blood rushing in his ears. Finally, he stands right before his seated commander. Reyes holds out the cigarette, the unlit side outwards.

Jesse takes the gesture for what it is. Slowly, he lowers himself onto one knee in front of his king. He opens his mouth, reaches forward and takes the cigarette between his teeth. He looks up at Reyes. Despite the fact this is not the twisted, horrifying face of Reaper, Gabriel is still scarred. His eyes are red rimmed. There are dark smudges under his eyes.

He is beautiful and old and wise. And Jesse knows without a shadow of a doubt that even though they’ve been betrayed, even though they’ve been sacrificed, blood spilling out and pouring across the altar and down the temple steps, he loves Gabriel. He has always loved Gabriel.

Talon twisted and tainted their story, molding and manipulating it into the thing they wanted. But they didn’t plant it there. A small seed in the earth, full of promise. 

Their outcome was unhappy. Their beginning was not. Jesse looks up at his commander. Gabriel looks down at his student.

“Someone wrote us a very sad story,” says the king. “Don’t you think it’s time we got a second chance?”

“Kiss me,” Jesse begs, voice harsh. “Kiss me before it’s too late.”

Gabriel smiles slowly.

“Next time,” he replies around his cigarette. “Take off your hat, agent.”

Jesse obeys. Gabriel picks up the crown resting on his thigh. With gentle reverence he places it on Jesse’s head, pushing it down around his brow. It fits. Jesse McCree closes his eyes.

And wakes up.

The room is dark, even though he can hear the sound of morning birds chirping outside. The bed is soft, and warm. Jesse frowns, shifts around to glance over his shoulder. There is a slither of sunlight shining into the bedroom from the crack in the curtains. Blackout, of course. Jesse slides himself out of the bed, lands lightly on the balls of his feet. He creeps around across the plush carpet towards the window, clasps his hands in the rich fabric. He breathes in a deep inhale of air. He pulls them apart.

Morning light floods in, rich and bright, chasing away the dark shadows of the dim bedroom and replacing them in vivid hues. There is a faint stirring behind him, and Jesse turns around to look. To see him rising up from his deep slumber, rubbing one broad hand over his eyes. 

Gabriel Reyes, done in watercolour.

(Sometimes you get to start again.)

 

* * *

  
"like the stars chase the sun; over the glowing hill, i will conquer" - _queen of peace_ , florence + the machine

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author's note to come.


	8. Author's Note.

So, what _is_ aperture?

I like to consider this fic an experiment, mostly. An experiment where I decide to sit down and write seven chapters of a single continuous story, depicting the relationship between two people across an entire lifetime. The catch, of course, is that the chapters don't directly connect—they're clearly from the same timeline, but there are large gaps of time (and sometimes space) between each one.

So what does it mean?

It means my experiment turned out to be incredibly interesting to me as both an author and as someone who really enjoys the relationship between Jesse and Gabriel. Writing a chapter that fulfilled a certain prompt was fairly simple enough, but stringing them together into a single timeline wasn't as simple. Or at least, it wasn't at _first_. The first two chapters: domestic and smoke, came quite easily to me—they were just two separate missions of their lives in Blackwatch. But as the fic went on, the story essentially started to write itself, and before I could realize what was happening I had written 16000 words of a very complex and very confusing portrayal of Jesse and Gabriel's relationship.

I have gotten a few comments asking "what is happening" / "I don't understand" / "what exactly _is_ the motivation of this character"? And the truth is, if there is something within this story I have not elaborated on specifically, it means I didn't want to give a reader _my_ interpretation, but rather let some things lie. Some things are always more distantly horrifying when you aren't given details, and some stories are more interesting when you are allowed to fill in gaps yourself. There are huge temporal gaps between sections of _aperture_ because the point of the story is that I only give you snapshots; seven of them. That is in no way adequate to tell a reader everything about a relationship, and to be honest I really wouldn't want to.

So I gave the reader the most important ones. 

And it was very interesting. It gave me a new look on Reaper, and on Gabriel. I enjoyed writing him as somebody who tried so hard to be in control of everything that eventually he built his own prison. Warped inside the walls of his own mind, lost behind a dozen different masks, in the end it was easy for Talon to take that and run with it as far as they could go. In this universe, Reaper was inevitable as long as Gabriel believed that nobody could or should be trusted. Reaper is inevitable when Gabriel believes he has to be alone.

And Jesse? Jesse had every right to be bitter and angry and leave Reyes, in my opinion. Chapter four is an interesting chapter because in my eyes it is a double betrayal: Gabriel and Jesse have both betrayed each other since at this point their story is being written by somebody else. They're not themselves, and their love isn't living up to the potential that it could be. Without elaborating in too much detail, that particular chapter was extremely cathartic to write and was written in the quickest amount of time. As soon as I hit Gabriel's mental breakdown I literally couldn't stop typing furiously, drawing both from Shakespearean and Ancient Greek tragedy in my symbolism. I hope the emotion managed to get through somewhat. And in a way, that was the main goal of the fic. Emotion. Originally I hadn't even planned for a storyline. The storyline wrote itself after I realized that there was no way to explain the emotions the characters were feeling without having some kind of plot. But in the end, I think Talon had been there from the very beginning. There was always something off about Jesse and Gabriel.

Speaking of emotion: it's a tricky thing to do when you're only giving the reader snapshots. I realize that in some chapters the emotion might feel a little empty because you see neither the buildup to or the aftermath of some of it. Like I said, this fic was an experiment. And overall, I think I'm satisfied with the outcome.

By the time I had gotten to the end, I knew I had two choices: an unhappy ending or a happy one. _Aperture_ always had two endings, since the prompt for the last day was "alternate universe." Either I wrote the unhappy ending where chapter seven was happy (ergo, the au where they were happy because the reality was so bleak), or I did the reverse. For a long time the first option seemed deliciously cruel and tempting. Then I realized it really would not work. So I decided to go even lower for a little bit, so that in the end they could break the surface of the water and breathe again. The last chapter is very out of sorts and doesn't fit within a conventional reality. That is entirely deliberate. Reaper shoots (and kills) Jesse at the end of chapter five. Jesse disappears into the afterlife, a void state. And there he meets... Gabriel. The real Gabriel. The first Gabriel, who still sits atop of his throne made of concrete, hollow crown slipping off his brow.

This Gabriel is tired. This Gabriel cannot endure. And so the ending of _aperture_ is bittersweet, actually, since although Jesse manages to go back and starts over again, there's still a timeline where Jesse is dead and Gabriel lingers alone in that void.

The bare bones of _aperture_ are this: Their love is real, because you can't fake true love. Their (first) story was not. And that is why right at the end I decided to give them a second chance. With all his newfound knowledge, let's hope the gunslinger can steer them towards a safe shore.

And while we're at it, here's the official playlist: [aperture: the official mix.](http://sassanids.tumblr.com/post/154128368593/aperture-seven-snapshots-of-a-relationship-from)

Thank you for diving into this little world with me. I hope you enjoyed the ride. And if there are still any lingering questions about certain particular details, I would always love to answer ♥


End file.
